WhackyNation

A friend of mine has been encouraging me to get back in touch with some of my artistic roots.  So Patrick invited me along with his friend Matthew to photoshoot the Gay Pride Parade in Seattle last weekend.

30 years ago I was really into photography.  I started my career as a TV news film photographer and in my spare time roamed the Portland countryside with my Nikon F and lived my life through a lense.

Well, 30 years of career and kids and family and all that, and my photography interest and abilities went wayside.  My older daughter Lyza has the artistic ability in the family and has a far better eye than I do.  She’s been working at photography for over ten years and sells her photos to Northwest magazines and newspapers.

I was given a Nikon D80 last year as a gift.  Damn digital stuff.  Too confusing.  So it basically sat and when photos were needed; it was lot easier using a pocket-sized digital camera.

So, Patrick said, “Enough!”  And he challenged me to use the D80.  So I took it to the parade last week.  I shot everything in jpeg format … and I regret I didn’t save the shots in raw format so they would have finished sharper.  I never took the camera off automatic as I am still uncomfortable manually controlling shutter speed, aperture, etc.  But, the results were pleasing, and I am looking forward to learning more about this camera.

I’m posting a link to my first Flickr.com upload for you to see the shots if you care.  WARNING: there is nudity, including full frontal, so don’t go to the site if you’ll be offended.

By the way, I think I was about the only Republican at the parade.  Every Democrat politician was, however. 

Except there was one who wasn’t in her place where the parade started even though she was Grand Marshall. 

Soon after I took over the position of managing editor of Seattle’s morning newspaper, The Post-Intelligencer, in the middle 1960s, I inaugurated a tradition by ordering that henceforth the Declaration of Independence was to be reproduced on Page 1 in bold letters every Fourth of July.

At first, some of my colleagues wore frowns that seemed to say: “This guy has lost his marbles.” But, in time, as public acceptance of the unusual idea grew and the compliments poured in to the newspaper for its unusual salute to the spirit of America, the staff became united in lauding the new tradition.

As a matter of fact, I didn’t care what anyone thought or said inside the newspaper or outside it. I was determined that, for one day each year at least, the newspaper I directed was going to put the crime news, the political and government reports, and everything else aside (or at least not on Page 1), so that full attention could be given by our readers and our staff to the greatest document in the history of humankind.

That tradition lasted for the decade I was the newspaper’s managing editor. When I left, the new editor dropped the idea for reasons I never could discern. I think it was a shame that the new order didn’t share my opinion that no other document in world history could match the Declaration of Independence in importance and meaning to free men and women everywhere.

I think reverence for the Declaration and its meaning should be taught in every private and public school in America. The drama that preceded its creation and remained with it in those revolutionary days should be absorbed by every boy and girl in America at an early age and repeated often thereafter so that the spirit of the Declaration is never diminished nor abandoned.

Thomas Jefferson’s hand is clearly evidenced in the Declaration’s beautiful prose and its courageous intentions. He had some help from four other committee members, but he was the magnificent document’s principal architect.<

Even more significant and compelling than the Magna Charta, the Declaration of Independence threw off the yoke of an oppressor nation that was far stronger militarily than the ragtag American forces. But sheer determination and the presence of a brilliant general named George Washington triumphed over a superior force — and America, the independent upstart that was to become the “star” of the free democratic world, was born.

I hasten to recommend to every American who can read that he or she find a copy of the Declaration at the library and thrill to its magic words and its superb meaning for each one of us. It’s relatively short — but, oh, so sweet and beautiful and meaningful!

The environmental extremists seem to run hot and cold on issues. They jump from one issue to another, leaving the old one behind, undoubtedly because they don’t have any truly scientific support for each one. A case in point was their phony panic over a non-existent danger, which one scientist described as “the holes in the ozone-hole scare.”

Another in a long list of hot-and-cold alarms was the cry of anguish over acid rain. Remember that one? I certainly do, because I countered the extremists at every turn until I realized they didn’t have a leg to stand on. Now, please don’t misunderstand me. I’m all for determining what causes acid rain and how to control it.

But control, as in all other cases, should be done when all the scientific results are in — and not in a gigantic, premature program that would simply enrich a lot of big companies and not get the job done. The acid-rain scenario of past years was an international drama with lots of players.

Funny thing. I think the environmental movement — the honest one I have been involved in since the 1950s — is genuinely concerned and has good intentions. But, thanks to the political extremists, it has been handed a bill of goods. The extremists demanded acid-rain curbs before the real causes were identified.

Among the extremists’ strange bedfellows were big companies like General Electric and Combustion Engineering. They stood to make billions of dollars from the premature legislation the extremists tried to get passed because they made pollution-control products.

Oh, yes. I almost forgot. Out in the wings of the phony drama the extremists were playing out was Canada’s colossal power industry. If their legislative measure had been accepted by Congress and Canada’s federal government, many of the older coal-fired power plants in the Northeastern U.S. would probably have had to close down, putting thousands out of jobs — and permitting Canada’s power moguls to find a rich, new market for its surplus electricity!

One of the great mysteries that disturbed me in the days the enviros were trying to get their alarmist legislation passed was how they managed to get in a political bed with the big corporations they always said they despised. It’s amazing what the thirst for political power will do to unthinking humans.

By the way, I should also mention another important factor in the brouhaha over acid rain. The information company that first issued the report promoting the extremists’ proposed legislation also provided advertising and promotional services to all the power companies that would have profited immensely from the ill-advised bill.

Finally, I have a rhetorical question that should always be posed when considering costly actions backed by the environmental extremists: Whom do you think would be saddled with the costs of all the legislation that has been proposed — and will continue to be proposed — by the rabid enviros?

If you have a mirror handy, you can find the answer to that question simply by looking into it. Environmental extremism has always cost the American taxpayer a lot of greenbacks he or she didn’t have to pay.

Courtesy Investors Business Daily:

Corruption: Yet another Democrat’s sweetheart mortgage deal is exposed — and this time it’s the party’s standard bearer. What could Sen. Barack Obama do for a lender in exchange for more than $100,000? Plenty.

Obama, presumptive Democratic presidential nominee from Illinois and self-styled man of the people, lives in a mansion described by the Washington Post as featuring “six bedrooms, four fireplaces, a four-car garage and 5 1/2 baths, including a double steam shower and a marble powder room . . . a wine cellar, a music room, a library, a solarium, beveled glass doors and a granite-floored kitchen.”

Eyebrows are already raised by the Obamas’ purchase of the palatial abode in 2005 for $300,000 under its asking price of $1.95 million. The day that purchase closed, the since-convicted Chicago fraudster and early Obama fundraiser Tony Rezko bought an adjoining lot from the same seller for the full asking price of $625,000, which Obama admitted to the Chicago Sun-Times he then bought from Rezko for “above the appraised value” — “a mistake,” he said, giving the impression “that he had done me a favor.”

The Boston Globe reported last week that Rezko used federal subsidies Obama supported in the U.S. Senate to rehabilitate more than 1,000 apartments in and near Obama’s old state senate district. Rezko then neglected the homes “to the point where many no longer were habitable.”

Now the Washington Post reveals the Obamas got a sweetheart deal on their “super super jumbo” $1.32 million mortgage from Chicago’s Northern Trust, saving more than $300 a month — about $110,000 over the life of the loan. Add the $71,000 Northern Trust employees have given Obama’s campaign and it makes you wonder about quid pro quos.

Read more.

This guy is such cheap trash.  He sells out so cheaply; hoping never to be caught.  Then he gets a sweetheart interest rate to finance his home.  Democrat activists are so stupid.  Obama is a whore.  Democrats are in a fix.

Do you bring back Hillary?  Or do you suffer the biggest election defeat ever?

Tough to be a Democrat these days.  I feel so sorry.  This story is going to catch up with you.

Almost as if to establish a model of action for the United States to follow, India’s government has decided to assist millions of poverty-stricken tribal people by giving them ownership rights to land on which they have been living in the nation’s remote forests, according to an Associated Press dispatch from New Delhi.

A government bill approving the generous action was passed by India’s Parliament. It will be a godsend to the members of the various tribes in the forest area. In fact, it will be a case of the government’s belated recognition of the tribal people’s rights to the land, which was taken away from them in earlier laws.

As the A.P. put it,

The indigenous forest-dwellers, known as Adivasis, occupy the lowest rungs of India’s social ladder. They will now have the right to farm on small plots and to sell forest produce. However, the new law stipulates that they will not be allowed to hunt wild animals.

The prohibition against hunting is in line with Indian tradition to protect all wild animals.

India’s action should ignite a movement in the U.S. to give American Indians the same rights. For years, I have been appealing for congressional action to abandon all longtime Indian treaties, give the tribes property rights to the land, and grant all Indians the same citizenship rights the rest of us have. It’s long past time to eliminate the Indians’ second-class citizenship and make them full-time American citizens.

A few years ago, the state of New Hampshire took the lead in bringing Indian tribes into mainstream America by doing exactly what I have been proposing for years — eliminating the treaties and the reservations they created, giving the Indians the land on which they had made their homes and other properties, and welcoming the tribes into first-class citizenship.

Why don’t other states follow New Hampshire’s lead and bring an end to the treaties that gave Indians dual citizenship but second-class American status? Oklahoma, a key state in Indian affairs, should have led the Western states into a mass withdrawal from the treaties and the reservations they created.

If we are to live by standards for citizenship and freedom that were established by our forefathers and clearly written into our Constitution, we must not continue to force our Indian brethren to endure dual citizenship and isolation within the reservations, which amount to foreign nations within our borders.

For more than three centuries, we have welcomed immigrants from nations everywhere in the world and granted them first-class citizenship. That’s the least we can do for the Indians, who were the original Americans. We should start by abolishing the Bureau of Indian Affairs, which has been delivering handouts to the tribes in accordance with the ill-conceived treaties.

I’d like to see Washington State, with its large Indian populations and reservations, lead the way and copy New Hampshire’s lead. I’ll bet that if we did, we would soon be followed by other states with large Indian populations and reservations — Oregon, California, Nevada, Arizona, and New Mexico.

Since the World Trade Center disaster on September 11, 2001, the U.S. in particular and the world in general have taken on a grim malaise never before experienced among nations. On occasion, observers have likened it to a 21^st Century version of the 11^th to 16^th Century Crusades, which pitted Christian armies against Islamic armies in the Middle East.

I’ve been one of those who compared the modern calamity to the Crusades, but now I see great, grave differences that make the Crusades seem like an intramural sport by comparison.

Today the battleground is far broader and involves the entire world of nations. The weapons utilized are far more sophisticated and technically awesome and the territories involved are far broader and extend from one end of the globe to the other.

A dangerous split has been occurring among Americans. At one end, infuriated citizens are calling for an all-out war against anti-American Muslims wherever they may be found — and similar action against any nations that may be harboring them or protecting them. At the other end, we have the peace-at-any-price contingent, which insists we must fold up our tents everywhere else in the world and let the terrorists have their way, no matter what the consequences.

There is another path we must take, and, I strongly believe, it is the only road that has a chance to resolve the terrible, oncoming conflict and put the world, instead, on the path that will lead to world peace. It will be the most difficult road to travel, but it is one we must take to end the deadly split mentioned, cool tempers, and create a new, hope-filled relationship among all nations.

That path demands the patience and perseverance of statesmen in the Western World and in the World of Islam. Islamic leaders have stated on many occasions that the terrorism practiced by Osama bin Laden and his followers in Al Quaida and other warring factions is not condoned by Islamic nations — and, perhaps most important, not condoned in the Koran, the book of sacred writings which governs Islam.

We should accept the word of the peaceful Islamic leaders and inform them that it is their duty and obligation to ferret out the Muslim terrorists, not ours. They know who the terrorists are and where they are training and residing. And they are far more capable of eradicating the radical menace than we are

In effect, then, we would be transferring responsibility for achieving a solution to the Islamic world, where the problem truly belongs. Bringing about such a transfer will require the skill and patience of the most dedicated statesmen and women in the U.S. and its Western allies.

Do we have that vision and patience and are we willing to appeal to the Islamic World to take the path to peace — before the hotheads at home and abroad force us into a “Crusades-like” war we can never win?

There it was, a sign in the Seattle hotel elevator boasting just how green the hotel was being in order to save the planet.

Get me the barf bag.

The hotel was boasting four room policies:

1. Shower constrictors to reduce water consumption;
2. Shower soap dispensers to reduce refuse disposal;
3. Compact flourescent lightbulbs to reduce carbon dioxide pollution;
4. and optional linen and towel replacement to reduce water pollutuion.

Was the motivator mother earth or reducing costs and increasing profits?

I suspect the bottom line as managers justified cost cutting by labeling it “green.”

I don’t mind managers cutting costs, but I do mind having smoke blown up my ass.  Do marketeers think the public is that gullible?

Pick up any Northwest focused magazine or newspaper and you’ll see ads for communities “built green,’ or ads for interior decorators who use only “organic” and “natural materials.”

It’s nice to know that as the wealthy high tech couple builds their 6,000 square foot McMansion, they are only using green materials.

These latest environmental buzzwords in advertising ring hollow to me most of the time.  Advertisers are pandering to America’s latest political fashion, environmentalism, but keep encouraging America’s all-time habit, consumerism.  I guess you can still consume and think yourself green.

That’s the power of belief.

“Everybody talks about the weather, but nobody does anything about it.” Although that very familiar saying is often erroneously attributed to Mark Twain, it is correctly credited to Charles Dudley Warner, who included it in an editorial he wrote for The Hartford Courant on August 24, 1897.

Substitute the word “traffic” for “weather” and you’ll immediately understand what this commentary is about. Everybody in cities from coast to coast complains, sometimes bitterly, about the traffic mess on America’s roads, but nobody — meaning officials who run the cities and towns — does anything to alleviate the mess.

Perhaps that’s because nobody in authority seems to know where to begin to eliminate the daily jams. I’m pretty sure I know where to begin, and I hope you don’t flinch when you hear me out. I know from the very beginning that my proposal will make two very important groups terribly angry: Young people 16- and 17-years old and the automobile industry in America and overseas.

All right. Here it is: I don’t think anyone will dispute my contention that there are far too many autos on the road and that we have a mounting traffic problem that threatens national gridlock. OK? Right. Now, I propose that the driving age everywhere in the U.S. be raised from 16 to 18 or even higher if legislators dare.

Let me explain. It has become a custom nationwide for youngsters about to become 16 to apply immediately for a driver’s license. Their second step, also immediate, is to demand a car of their own, whether it’s brand new or a jalopy that is just an accident away from the junkyard.

What has happened in the past two or three decades? Every family sports four, five, or more autos in the garage, on the driveway, or at the curb. The American family home has a parking lot of its own! That wouldn’t be so bad if only one those autos were used at a time. But, no, it’s far more customary for every one of those cars to be going somewhere.

It’s going to get worse before it gets better. Raising the driving age to 18 would result in an immediate improvement in road traffic. A corollary to all this is the desperate financial situation most transit systems are in across America because they have lost many riders.

Forcing the 16- and 17-year olds to start taking the bus or streetcar to their destinations would increase transit patronage in large numbers. And, presto again! We have solved two problems at the same time!

I should mention another crucial advantage. Sixteen- and 17-year olds are among the most likely drivers to get into serious accidents resulting in severe injuries and even death. That calls for another Presto! In addition to everything else, we would be preventing many serious injuries and saving precious lives!

One of the most pronounced signals of the advancing American decadence is the disgusting view of what the young rock-n-roll generations are doing to their bodies. Well, it isn’t only the young, because many middle-agers are doing it, too. But it is mostly the teen-through-30s rockers who are “uglifying” themselves, if I may be permitted to coin a word.

Years ago, it was no surprise to find a seagoing man come home with tattoos on his arms, back, or legs. And no one complained loudly — as maybe they should have. But today, thanks to the evil influence of rock musicians — and I bite my lip as I use the term “musicians” in this case — body-piercing and tattooing has become not just a tradition but, it seems, a requirement.

If it were possible to get a law passed banning all tattoos and body piercings, I would be happy to get behind such a campaign and help get it approved. But I realize that such a move would not be constitutional, so it would be wasting time to try it.

However, there must be a way to stop this dastardly trend that challenges civilization and return our young people, at least, to sanity and to persuade them to regard their bodies as something the Lord gave them to preserve unsullied. Let’s face it: No matter how artistic the tattooers may be — or assumed to be by the tattooed — any carving up of the skin to portray anything from animals to humans is terribly ugly and deserves to be banned.

The tattoos are bad enough. I think the body piercings are even worse. They are not only ugly; they are dangerous, and the medical profession should have declared war on them years ago. No matter what may be said in defense of the piercings, they are an abomination and an invitation to a body and skin ailment.

Thanks again to the Rock Era influence, we’ve seen pierced nostrils with rings or beads in them, pierced tongues (Ouch!), pierced belly-buttons, and even pierced vaginal labia (and even penises, for goodness’ sake!). What else is there left to be pierced and embellished with rings, precious stones, or some other trinket? Have these young people lost their minds?

Now, having said all that, what can the rest of us really do about it without curbing the constitutional rights of these rockers to mutilate their bodies with tattoos and hanging adornments?

First, of course, I would hope that the medical profession would take a strong stand against the piercing practice and the tattoos and campaign to get them stopped for health reasons. Then I would hope that all the news media, including TV and the news magazines, joined the campaign to demonstrate what foul practices tattooing and body piercings are.

Parents of these rockers should also join the campaign and crack down on their youngsters if they get the mutilation urge. Girls especially should speak their minds, since it is obvious that young male rockers get tattooed and pierce their body parts because too many female youngsters think “it’s cute” or “manly.”

Those who justify the foul practice “because the aborigines do it” should be reminded that our civilization has progressed far beyond the aboriginal standard. I have one last horrifying thought on the subject: If we don’t stop the miserable practices of tattooing and body piercings, where will it lead us? What are the next steps in the mutilation parade?

Now that the alarms have gone out coast to coast, the people who watch the American diet are devoting much more time to putting the heat on adults to tighten their belts literally and to watch their calories, or else.

Foremost in the fight against obesity in the population is the venerable American Heart Association and all its members across the nation. They aren’t kidding. They have put the screws to us chubby adults in particular — adults who believe unwisely that calories should be swallowed, not counted.

If you’re more than a few pounds overweight these days, you had better pay attention to the advice of the Heart Association, its doctors, and its nurses and workers wherever you are, because, if you’ll pardon the expression, what they have to tell us carries a lot of weight.

For many months now, the association has been saying that we shouldn’t take in any more cholesterol in a single day than you’ll find in one egg. And they are also saying that we should absorb no more salt in a single day than would measure any more than a level teaspoon.

We’re told by the medicos and their collaborators in the American Heart Association that the great heat in the new diet is on cutting back those saturated fats that clog the arteries. However, I have a problem with these dictums that are designed to keep the rest of us from an early date with the Grim Reaper.

The warnings, the diets, and stuff like that are fine and, in fact, life-saving. I’ll acknowledge that, and I’m sure you will, too. But I’m afraid that the latest warnings about diet and over-eating are aimed primarily at adults like me. I think the association is too late!

We need to concentrate on better diets for infants and the very young. Bad eating habits that lead us onto the road to obesity and all the serious ailments that come with it are learned in the first few years of life and are actually prompted and promoted by parents and other adults who keep teasing the young children to eat more “because it’s good for you, Dear”!

An overfed baby may draw raves from Uncle Ned and Grandma Mary. But the poor kid is already gearing his muscle, his mind, and his impulses to be a chow hound. A child must think that ramming food down his throat must be the right thing to do, since Mama and Papa, as well as Uncle Joe and Aunt Polly, tell us we should.

So, what the Heart Association and all its workers need to do is to quit pointing an accusatory finger at chubby adults. They should be aiming that finger and their warnings at those who prepare meals for the small fry. I think a “junior heart association” should be created to show new mothers and dads how to hold down the cute double chin in little sweetie pie!

Oh, by the way, you flabby adults who think that food alone is your problem should know that the Heart Association also warns you to cut down on the consumption of alcohol, because it contributes to over-eating. So, my dear chubby friend, put away those bottles of bourbon, scotch, and vodka, ‘cause they’re gonna help put on the pounds.

When I went to bed the other night, I was in a good mood, despite the chilly winds blowing up in a fury and the threat of foul weather. I slept like the proverbial rock. No silly dreams. Nary a sneeze nor a running nose. And no midnight phone calls.

Then, after a great breakfast, courtesy of my loving wife of 65 years, my roommate and I settled down to what I hoped would be a pleasant day. Happy 24 hours ahead. But, no! As I read the morning newspaper, my smile turned to a frown. An article on Page 1 informed one and all that we could expect snow; then, it went on to report that some medical researchers had said it was OK to shovel snow, but “for heaven’s sake, don’t jump out of bed to shovel it, because that could be curtains for your heart.”

Holy Toledo, Batman! That bothered me not a little. However, I calmed down after realizing that I would not be fool enough to “jump out of bed just to shovel snow.” Just as my temper calmed down, another page in the same newspaper announced that other medical researchers said drinking decaffineated coffee could play a role in boosting the bad cholesterol in a person’s body by 7 percent or more!

I said it again: Holy Toledo, Batman! That did it! I had a strong suspicion that my very own doctor had planted that piece in the morning newspaper because he had run out of ideas on how to get to me. After I suffered a stomach ulcer, he took away my cocktail hour. Then he removed the wine list from my dinner menu. He knew I was a chocoholic , so he banned all candy, laughing like this — Hah! Hah! Hah! – as he did it. Sugar and salt, he said, were definite No-Nos. Then, with another series of Hah-Hah-Hahs, he put me on a diet that sounded like Mahatma Ghandi’s fast.

However — and this is the point of this entire essay — he didn’t rule out decaf coffee. In fact, he recommended that I quit drinking regular coffee and turn to decaf whenever I felt the need for a breakfast drink. Of course, the breakfast drinks he really favored were grapefruit juice, orange juice, milk, and stuff like that there.

Ruling out decaf coffee was left, then, to those persnickety medical researchers, who, I muttered with a distinct grudge, probably had a lot of money in hot-chocolate stock or some other non-caffineated products. At any rate, I told myself that I’d be willing to bet a bundle that the researchers secretly drank half a dozen cups of caffineated coffee as they pondered how to phrase their report.

Reading the newspaper article that morning reminded me immediately of the classic story about that old curmudgeon of films, W. C. Fields. He was sitting at a bar one day, when his longtime bartending buddy asked him if he would have the usual double scotch on the rocks.

“Of course,” Fields replied. Then he proceeded to tell the bartender that he had just read in the newspaper that alcohol wrecked the linings of the stomach and the entire inner body, and that it was bound to shorten a man’s life. At that, the bartender scratched his head for a moment, then asked Fields:

“Well, does that mean you’re going to give up drinking alcohol?” Without a pause, Fields grunted and shot back at the bartender:

“Hell, no. It means I’m going to give up reading the newspaper!” (I’m still drinking decaf, 40 years after the doctor died!)

Year after year, without fail, American fishermen and the U.S. Coast Guard keep reporting that foreign fleets, most of them from Asian nations or Russia, are taking fish illegally in our waters off the Pacific Coast. And for years our federal government has looked the other way or said it could find no violations.

In fact, the U.S. has not only ignored the complaints, but in many instances defended the fishing tactics of Japan, Korea, Russia, and other violators. I think that, at times, our State Department is the best foreign ministry other nations have, and that feeling persists each year.

It is not unusual, for example, for foreign ships to cross into our North Pacific waters under cover of darkness or low clouds and illegally catch an estimated 10 billion pounds of fish. And all this happens despite the fact that Congress declared several years ago that no ships could come within 200 miles of our Northwest and Western shorelines without our permission.

Ten billion pounds of fish is nearly three times more than scientists say should be caught without endangering the ocean’s fish supply. We seem to be the only fishing nation that does nothing about international poachers, but we restrict our fishermen severely.

However, Japan, Korea, Russia, and other nations do nothing about restricting their fishermen in their own waters. For example, you don’t see Japanese or Korean fishermen taking fish in Russian waters, nor do you see the Russians fishing in Japanese and Korean waters — and for good reason.

Our do-nothing federal government should take a tip from the Russians, for instance, and remove the wraps from the Coast Guard, the Navy, and the Air Force and give them full authority to patrol our waters, taking the strongest action necessary to chase poachers out of our waters.

To do it, we will have to give the State Department a shot of starch in the back and a swift kick a little farther down to force it to take action against any fishing vessel or fleet that dares cross into the 200-mile zone without first getting permission from the Coast Guard or the Navy.

Something must be done to stop the illegal poaching and, also, to cut back on the fishing fleets that drag the ocean with expansive nets to take millions of fish in one operation. I wish the federal government had listened to my old friend, Dr. Dixy Lee Ray, before she died in 1994.

Known internationally as a highly experienced marine scientist and oceanographer, Dr. Ray tried often to warn government and everyone concerned that, as she put it, “The fish population in all the earth’s oceans and other waters is not unlimited. If we keep up the constant scooping up of sea life in those horrendous nets, we will one day discover that most species of fish are gone forever.”

Unfortunately, Dr. Ray’s warnings were not heeded by the federal government, nor by commercial and sports fishermen. And, worse yet, her warnings have had no effect on the ears of officials and the fishing industries of other nations around the world.

In this wacky but wonderful nation, history has a habit of repeating itself in the most remarkable and surprising ways. For example, a New York Times report just this week tells us that “the Army and Air Force discharged a disproportionate number of women in 2007 under the ‘don’t ask, don’t tell’ policy that prohibits openly gay people from serving in the military.”

My mind went back immediately to those Second World War days, when the Women’s Army Corps was created and a flood of women volunteers entered the military, most of them to do clerical and similar work in order to free males for duty in the infantry and other divisions, as well as for flight duty in the Air Force.

The year was 1943. I was in the Army then, and my buddies and I could not help notice the caliber of women who had decided to join the military. It didn’t take long for us to recognize the fact that a large number of the new women recruits — perhaps a majority of them — were lesbians.

That didn’t bother us. The fact that so many women had volunteered to join the service to relieve men for frontline duty encouraged us to congratulate the women. We didn’t really care what their sexual preferences were, so long as they had enough patriotism to take an active role in the military.

All went well in those early war days as the major task at hand — the defeat of Hitler’s Nazi forces and Japan’s armies — occupied everyone’s mind in our battles on two fronts.

After Hitler’s defeat and the atomic bombing of Japan, we noticed a decided change in the attitudes of the WACs, most notably the lesbians.

The lesbians wanted out, and the sooner the better. And the Army and Air Force were just as eager to bid them farewell.<. That’s why this week’s report seemed to be a case of history repeating itself, even though the wartime background was missing with the new announcements from the services.

The Pentagon refused to divulge the exact number of gays and lesbians in the large number of discharges in 2007 and this year, but it was clear that many of them were due to the military’s “don’t ask, don’t tell” policy, under which openly gay men and women are prohibited from serving.

It was also disclosed that the Army discharged 302 soldiers under the “don’t ask, don’t tell” policy, signifying that the discharges were for men and women who were openly gay or lesbian. That was an increase in the number of such discharges from the 280 of the year before.

Under the policy, the Air Force dismissed 91 persons in 2007. The Navy, meanwhile, disclosed that it had discharged 166 persons under the policy. For the same period, the Marine Corps discharged 68, an increase over the 64 the year before.

Has the “don’t ask, don’t tell” policy been a success one, or should the Pentagon revise it or get rid of it altogether? It seems to me that the large number of gay-and-lesbian discharges indicates that a totally new policy should be created. Why not find out at enlistment time whether recruits are gay or lesbian — and deny them entry into military service. Wouldn’t that save all hands a lot of grief?

One of the most vexing unsolved problems of America’s present and future economy is the gradual exportation of jobs from the nation’s industries to industries in foreign lands. The rush to take advantage of cheap labor overseas to enhance profit-taking at home is picking up pace, and no one seems to have a solution that will satisfy both labor and management.

Is there a solution? I think there are several potential solutions, and the sooner we adopt one or more of them the better chance we will have to forestall an economic crisis in our nation.

Before we consider the solutions, we should take a look at all the factors in the dangerous situation. Hampered constantly by rising costs of operation, labor, production materials, and, yes, taxes of all descriptions, industrial executives can hardly be blamed for looking abroad to find cheaper ways to produce the products they sell.

The leaders of industry must answer to their boards of directors, their shareholders, and the public, too, as they strive to create products that will sell in a very competitive marketplace — and do it at a profit that will insure the continued economic health of their industry. In our free-enterprise system, that is an absolute “must.” It is a question of survival, pure and simple.

How, then, can we nurture the health of American industry on one hand and counter the loss of jobs to cheaper factories overseas? I don’t have a specific answer, but I believe we should consider one or more of the following possibilities:

• Should Congress consider a special tax incentive that would apply to industries that, say, hold the percentage of jobs going abroad to 10 percent of the total work force at home? Or something like that…?
• Instead of transporting the jobs overseas, might it be feasible to transfer the American workers to the jobs overseas, provided the workers agreed and that they were well taken care of in foreign lands? I admit that idea is somewhat tricky, but it is worth considering.
• Should we consider writing agreements with foreign nations that would require that foreign industries accepting American workers paid those workers the same comparative wage that they were earning in the U.S.? And should that comparable wage also apply to native workers doing the exported jobs?
• Would it make sense to levy a special tariff on goods brought back to the U.S. that were produced by workers in exported jobs?

There are many more such ideas. Surely, some formula would work — perhaps a combination of several ideas.

The worst thing we could do is to do nothing and let the problem exacerbate to the point of bringing on that dreaded economic crisis. We must act before it is too late. America’s economy and its progress as the world’s greatest exponent of free enterprise and freedom demand action.

Woe to us if we lose our dominance as a producing nation and become a “user” nation that is dependent upon other countries for its manufactured goods.

This coming election just may come down to the gas gap.

As a nation we don’t have enough gas so the price is going up.  Everybody is noticing it.  And the two presidential candidates are differing on the fix.

Senator John McCain says we need more oil, so we need to re-visit our decades-old policies and re-open drilling including off-shore.  Drilling technology has greatly improved in 40 years since the Santa Barbara oil spill, he says.  In fact, no oil spilled in the gulf during Hurricane Katrina.

Senator Barack Obama says no to that.  He’s sticking to the same policy that has prevented any substantial increase in domestic oil production in decades.  Today the senator